“A-maize-ing Dynamic Cornfield Toolkit”

For Walt Disney Feature Animation’s, CHICKEN LITTLE, the EFX team was faced with a large number of vast, dynamic cornfield shots. These shots provided for some interesting challenges as they needed to be able to react to characters and dynamic forces such as wind, turbulence, and gravity. To further complicate matters, another requirement was to allow for the corn to be chopped by blade wielding aliens into predetermined crop circles. We realized early on that the system had to be easy enough for various departments to work with, yet flexible enough to get under the hood, as needed. Finally, any work created had to travel downstream in a compact form, without overwhelming other departments or bringing the pipeline to a grinding halt.